


How To Succeed At SHIELD Without Really Trying

by dyeyell



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Training
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyeyell/pseuds/dyeyell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Darcy Lewis became Agent Darcy Lewis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for one of the Darcy Lewis weeks with the prompt of "Agent Darcy Lewis." But I only wrote the first four chapters before I got sidetracked by life, so I'm posting on here and finishing the story... Hopefully.
> 
> And because I can't help but ship Darcy with all things, there with be a pairing here... i just haven't decided with who yet.

Darcy Lewis was not stupid.

When it came to knowing stuff, Darcy was almost like a savant. She knew music like the back of her hand, from 80’s pop to 40’s bebop to even classical (which surprised the hell out of Erik). She had the U.S. Constitution memorized, knew the names of every Senator and Representative in Congress, and she could give a run down of political history from around the world beginning with Ancient Greece. Darcy could also name every type of firearm and missile defense currently in use (at least those that were public knowledge, because Darcy knew the government was hiding shit) and those from the past (blame it on her military father). She also had some serious knowledge on computer programming and hacking (thank you geeky college ex-boyfriend). Essentially, there was a lot of shit Darcy knew. But apparently that didn’t matter to Jane or Erik, because none of that shit was science.

Okay technically, Darcy knew science, just not the kind that was useful to Jane’s research. But considering her base of knowledge, Darcy didn’t feel anyone could fault her for deciding to focus on political science. Particularly since she had already gotten her Bachelor’s in the subject and was working on her PhD. Some people (dad), might have wondered why in the hell she got an internship in the middle of New Mexico in a field that wasn’t even related to the doctorate she was working on, but Darcy felt that with her extensive knowledge of political history and access to CSPAN, she didn’t need to intern in Washington D.C. or some embassy somewhere in order to write about politics. Especially since that 250 page monolith known as her dissertation was in fact complete and had been submitted.

As with all things in the current U.S. climate, why Darcy was doing an internship for an astrophysicist in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico could squarely be blamed on the state of the economy. Darcy certainly couldn’t have afforded an unpaid internship, and with cutbacks abounding among the politically-minded, at least when it came to paid interns, Darcy didn’t really have a choice. She needed at least one internship (and 6 credits) to help round out her college career, and despite her advisor’s argument that she should have had this all completed before even submitting her dissertation proposal and that “the politics of astrophysics” wasn’t an actual thing but he was going to allow the internship because Darcy wouldn’t stop calling the chancellor of the university (again) at all hours harassing him and crying that she was THISclose to being Dr. Darcy Lewis but good ole George W. had ruined it all with his spending and tax cuts and how in the hell did she get his mobile number anyway.

So essentially, Darcy was a persuasive attractive 24 year old almost genius of epic proportions about to take over the world and the hard sciences could suck it.

Then Thor fell from the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

After that whole mess with Thor and Agent (I like taking iPods for “national security”) Coulson, Darcy decided to take stock of her life.

She was two weeks away from finishing her internship with Jane and a week after that she would have to defend her dissertation. Soon, Darcy would have to get a job and start paying off those pesky student loans. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been since Darcy knew her way around a scholarship essay, but still, she really needed to utilize her doctorate.

But Darcy now also knew some secret government shit that guaranteed that her perspective on the world would never be the same. That same secret government shit also guaranteed that she wouldn’t be out of sight of any jackbooted thugs for a long while. S.H.I.E.L.D., being the oh so generous sons of bitches that they were, would “allow” Darcy to defend her dissertation under the watchful eyes of two behemoth government sanctioned thugs, but after that she would have to relocate to the New York S.H.I.E.L.D. offices in order to officially “debrief.”

Darcy was 90% sure the “debriefing” would involve a Gitmo cell, because with nothing to contribute to Jane’s research (S.H.I.E.L.D. certainly needed Jane and Erik’s big brains to reconnect with Thor) then that meant Darcy was essentially useless to them. Thankfully the other 10% of Darcy had been right and the “debriefing” turned into a job offer, or rather a “take this job or else” offer.

Since Darcy was not stupid, she took the job.

It turned out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was impressed with Darcy’s extensive knowledge of politics and weaponry, the use of a tazer on the Norse god of thunder (which Darcy found ironic), and her newly acquired PhD (Darcy was impressed her advisor didn’t have a nervous breakdown when she called the Doctorate committee a bunch a liberal hippie sheep who didn’t understand the necessity for global armament).

So in the end, Darcy was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. as their newest agent-in-training.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear there is actual story to this story in the next chapter, and a bit more in length.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get up. This was originally published as two chapters, but I put them together and did a little bit of editing. In my my mind, it flows better with what I would have come next.

This was the sixth time agent-in-training Darcy Lewis sat before Agent (apparently his name is Phil and not "iPod-stealing-dickwad") Coulson. He had that creepy smile on his face that let you know that at any moment he was about to go ninja if you didn't get your shit together.

Darcy was not afraid.

She knew without a doubt that elbowing Agent Mathers in the face was the best thing she could have done for the man. Mathers was a sexist pig and apparently thought he was a character from Mad Men and felt it was necessary to the office atmosphere to pinch her ass. Darcy knew that with how young she looked and having an ample chest, that both men and women didn't take her seriously. They looked at her and immediately tended to classify her as an idiot. Sometimes Darcy played into that role in order to get people to underestimate her. She liked surprising people with how intelligent she was. Of course, Jane and Erik thought she was selling herself short, but Darcy knew that sometimes to come out ahead you had to hold some stuff back.

At any rate, Agent Mathers was the imbecile who tried to pinch the ass of someone who worked at S.H.I.E.L.D. Apparently he didn't get the memo that pretty much everyone in the building was deadly, including the janitors; seriously there was an actual memo sent out by Director Fury.

"Are you happy with yourself Dr. Lewis?"

Darcy mentally rolled her eyes. Coulson only ever brought out the Dr. Lewis bit to point out how stupid he thought her actions were. And considering he used it alot, he apparently thought she did a lot of stupid things.

"Well Coulson, I don't know what you want me to say," Darcy said this with a slight smirk that she knew would annoy the senior agent. "Except maybe you all should look into hiring more intelligent minions."

"That's why we have you Darcy," Coulson shot back at her, his creepy smile transforming into his own half smirk.

"Well I'm glad to be of service sir and may I offer that service into weeding out the other idiots?" Darcy asked in her mock serious tone with her mock serious face.

"If you finish your training than maybe we'll see about hiring you for that particular job," Coulson replied with a lift of his brow.

"About that, I've been training for three months now. When exactly do I finish?"

"When you can shoot half as well as Agent Barton and can survive at least three minutes against Agent Romanov, you'll be done," Coulson intoned with what Darcy could only describe as glee, though to most other people the agent had slipped into passive mode.

"Ah hell."

xxXXxxXXxxXXxx

When Darcy began her training for S.H.I.E.L.D., she wasn’t exactly out of shape. Darcy had always enjoyed running, despite the pain of running with big boobs. But she was wholly unprepared for the pain that was S.H.I.E.L.D. training. The first month of her training was simply to show Darcy just what exactly it meant to be in shape. She crawled and climbed and jumped and stretched till she thought she would fall over dead. She started the month barely able to do one standard push-up and ended the month doing five pull-ups.

The second month was more of the same with increasing levels of difficulty. When Darcy felt like she had finally succeeded in reaching one of the set training goals, the bar was raised. The third month at S.H.I.E.L.D. found Darcy starting her fight training. For twelve hours a day, Darcy learned a combination of Krav Maga, Judo, Kung Fu, kickboxing and street fighting. She also had to spend an hour a day at the shooting range, and two hours a day learning to tie/untie knots and pick locks.

After her sixth meeting with Coulson, Darcy was going to the range to meet with her shooting instructor Agent Bramson when she finally met the infamous Agent Clint Barton aka Hawkeye in person. She had certainly heard enough about him and had caught several glimpses of him from around corners, but nothing could prepare Darcy for the arm porn that lay before her at the end of the shooting range.

Clint stood motionless with his bow in his right hand and an arrow nocked and ready, and his bare left arm pulled backed, muscles bulging. He made shot after shot and Darcy watched him, fascinated with how steady and calm he seemed despite the ringing noise of gunshots all around him.

Internally Darcy chastised herself for her reaction to the man. She knew that whatever was going on or not going between Agent Barton and Agent Romanov (S.H.I.E.L.D. agents gossiped liked teenage girls), she did not want to be in the middle of that. But working at S.H.I.E.L.D. had introduced Darcy to a whole class of men that had previously been unattainable for her. 

The men (more like boys) that Darcy associated with in the past had been classmates. High school boys were all dumb so she had ignored them, and the college guys Darcy hung with were all skinny and intellectual and full of themselves. But the men of S.H.I.E.L.D. were Men (with a definite capital M). Despite Agent Mathers’ apparent idiocy, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were not stupid. In fact, many had advanced degrees or had been funneled into S.H.I.E.L.D. through military intelligence. But they also had the advantage of intense physical training.

Darcy was in nerdy girl heaven.

Darcy pulled out her cell phone to check the time and realized that Agent Bramson was late, which had never happened before, so she was unsure what to do. Just as she was putting her phone away and contemplating take a nap in a corner somewhere, Agent Barton looked up.

“Are you ever coming over here sweetheart or are you expecting me to train you from a distance?” Clint asked her with a smirk.

Darcy felt her stomach flutter and mentally cursed herself for being such a girl. “Well I didn’t know I was finally training with the amazing Hawkeye. If you really want to show what you’re made of I’m game.” Darcy tried to say this as nonchalantly as possible, but as Clint looked her up and down, smirk firmly in place, Darcy realized it came out flirtier than she intended.

“Game on then.” And with that Clint turned back to the target, put down his bow and picked up a gun and shot a perfect circle around the center of the target.

Darcy thanked the god of thunder for falling out of the sky.


End file.
